The Archive Riddle
by Shinysavage
Summary: Voldemort had expected something horrible in the aftermath of the Battle of Hogwarts. Nothing could have prepared him for this. HP/DF crossover.


******A/N: **While this story isn't going to directly relate to the Dresden canon, at least as far as I've planned, there will of course be characters and concepts from the series. So, there might be plot spoilers, but there will absolutely be content spoilers, if you see what I mean. All part and parcel of the crossover genre, I suppose, but fair warning.

The plot bunny that this is based on comes courtesy of Celestin, on the DLP forums; he asked me to write it as part of the Secret Santa competition.

**The Archive Riddle**

**Chapter 1: Awakened**

When I awoke, it was to darkness, stale air, and a distinct sense of enclosure. A brief examination of my surroundings suggested wood, coarse to the touch.

A coffin then. Not an unexpected result, under the circumstances, although I was a little surprised they had gone to the trouble. Far easier, and certainly more definite, to have incinerated my corpse.

Probably Potter's touch. It would not have been something Dumbledore would have approved of, after all, and the boy had clearly never had an original thought in his life. I allowed myself a brief smile. He would come to regret his 'honour', I would see to that myself.

To the matter at hand though. I muttered _"Lumos_" reflexively, and light surrounded me, albeit rather dimly. It was enough to confirm my conclusions. The coffin was cheap, little more than a few planks of wood nailed together, and I promised myself that whoever had designed the undignified box would suffer publicly, and extensively. Then, I moved my hand to raise my wand, and release myself from the tomb.

Or at least, I tried.

I held no wand. I frowned, an unfamiliar sense of confusion clouding my thoughts. I had cast a spell, so I must have a wand somewhere around. True, some of the more minor spells could be successfully cast without actually touching your wand…but a search of my clothes revealed nothing.

Nothing except the fact that I was dressed in a Muggle suit.

That, more than anything, turned my confusion and anger to worry. Why would they have done this? Potter, of course, knew of my heritage, but why bother with this charade? He did not have it in him to play games with fallen enemies, and while some of his allies might, and might well have wished to have me ridiculed, this was a rather obtuse way of going about it.

I took a deep breath. Escape was my priority. All else could wait until later. Taking another breath to calm myself, I considered my options and assets. No wand anywhere to be found – but it must be close, or else I would not have been able to illuminate the coffin. That being the case, escape was possible, although it would not be swift. Had I possessed my wand, I could simply have transfigured everything in my path, or Vanished it completely. For now though, I would be forced to rely on brute force.

"_Reducto!_"

Cast without a wand, although with my hand splayed against the lid, the spell did little more than splinter the wood. I repeated the spell, and the splinters became cracks. I gathered myself for another spell, but the power would not come. I felt weary, wearier than I had felt for a long time.

I forced myself to be patient. This was nothing, I had survived worse. I had existed for over a decade without even a body, a few hours in a box was nothing at all to be concerned about.

Ten minutes, maybe twenty, before I felt able to cast another spell. I gave myself another ten, to be on the safe side, and then put my hand to the lid once more. This time, the wood cracked apart, and I smiled.

The earth above was trickier. The Reductor Curse was not designed for digging, and I did not want to choke myself on an explosion of dirt. Again, Vanishing it would have been preferable, but I was going to have to rely on a spell favoured by common labourers and goblin drones; the Gouging spell. It did the job, with repeated applications opening up a path of sufficient size for me to pull myself out. By the time I was out, sprawled at the graveside, I was exhausted, my very bones aching and my brow filmed with sweat.

I ran a weary hand over my scalp, and paused. I had hair. Thick hair. My confusion returning, my fatigue suddenly forgotten, I ran my fingers over my face. I had eyebrows, a fully formed nose. My skin was smooth, not scaly, and my hands were those of any human male. I was…normal. _Average_. How had this happened? I knew of no magic that could reverse the changes I had wrought to my body, and more to the point none that anyone would have bothered performing.

What was happening to me?

I rolled over, and looked at the stone at the feet of which I had been buried. The night was overcast, but there was enough moonlight for me to make out the inscription.

_Thomas Matthew Riddle._

_Loving husband and father._

_1971 – 1998_

It wasn't my grave. It wasn't even my name, and the dates were wrong – the birthdate, at least. And I was nobody's husband. Father? Well, not impossible, but I doubted it. I certainly wasn't a loving father-

_Blond hair on a young woman, and a younger girl. Happiness. Pain. _

Who in the name of Merlin had they been?

I pushed the stray thoughts – memories? – from my mind, and climbed to my feet. It was a graveyard, a large one, much larger than the one in Little Hangleton. Not too far away, I could hear the sounds of…automobiles. A Muggle graveyard then. Another mystery; I tired of them. The sounds would probably be near the exit though, and I set off, prowling through the shadows cast by the more ancient stones. When I came to them, the gates were, naturally, locked. I pointed a finger at them, and the lock exploded, allowing my exit.

Once outside, I paused, surveying my surroundings. I was not in London, that was certain. I had not spent much time in the Muggle world since graduating from Hogwarts, but I was not so blinded by disgust that I could allow myself to remain ignorant of the wider world. If nothing else, I had to be aware of where to focus my attention. Who would have been interested in the obliteration of an insignificant little village they had never heard of, after all? I did not recognise anything that I could see, but something told me that I was no longer in Britain.

Still, some things never changed. My senses were undeniably duller, but I could still taste faint traces of magic in the air. Somewhere within the city, there was a magical community. I had no wand, no gold, nothing but the clothes I wore…but if I could find another wizard, I could soon remedy that. Allowing my nose to guide me, I set off into the city.

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It came as no surprise that I should find myself at a pub. The Leaky Cauldron, the Three Broomsticks…something about wizard-kind seemed to drive them to combine drunken-ness with travel. This pub though looked rather more reputable than any of the wizarding pubs I had been in before. It made me hesitate before entering.

I had no money. Normally, that would not have concerned me. I had no need to purchase refreshments, and no-one would have dared ask me for money. In the years before I had begun my crusade, I had often been without money – but I had been confident enough in my abilities to be sure of some way around that. Temporarily transfigured stones, or simply applying pain until the matter had passed. Now though, I could not be certain of success, and without any knowledge of the community's approach to law enforcement, I could find myself back in the graveyard I had just left rather sooner than I wanted.

In the end though, I had to gain knowledge. This was the only place I could be sure of obtaining it. And it had been many years since I had let others come between me and my desires.

I walked down the steps, and through a door into a room broken up by pillars. There were still a few people in there, nursing drinks in silence. One or two of them looked up at my entrance; most very carefully didn't. Curious. I would have expected that reaction somewhere like the Hogs Head, but this place – McAnally's – did not have the same atmosphere. Perhaps there were other wizards around who expected to be treated with respect.

I made my way to the bar, where the bartender passed me a bottle of, I assumed, beer. Before I could even attempt to say anything regarding payment, he nodded at me and walked away. On my guard now, I took a sip. It tasted like sunlight.

I spent maybe an hour there, drinking the beer slowly and listening in on nearby conversations. It was, as I had surmised, a wizard's pub, although I would not automatically have identified any of the other drinkers as magical. None of them wore robes, for a start, and I had seen no evidence of wands at all. Nobody had performed any magic at all, for that matter.

What I really wanted was for someone to leave on their own. It did not look as if it would be too difficult to overpower one of them, even without a wand.

And then, after another half hour or so, my wish was granted. An older man, maybe sixty, walked slowly out through the door. I hid my smile behind a sip from my glass. He was perfect. I waited five minutes, to avoid suspicion, and then left without looking at the bartender. He had still said nothing about money, and I wondered if he was a generous fool or simply a careless one.

Outside, the streets were far quieter than they had been when I arrived at the pub. There were still a few people wandering home, or drinking themselves into a stupor, but not enough to be a problem. The old wizard was twenty yards or so ahead of me, and I set off after him. I followed him through a few twists and turns, slowly but surely working myself closer. He did not appear to have noticed me, but I remained cautious. After about twenty minutes of shadowing him, he stopped outside a block of flats, and started patting at his pockets, presumably for a key. I looked around, but could see no-one else, even at a window. And fate was smiling on me, for the first time in several months. There was a conveniently positioned alleyway.

I strode forward, mustering as much power as I could – still an unfamiliar feeling. The wizard looked up at the sound of my approach, and I saw his eyes widen. Before he could do anything, I had unleashed the spell. He fell to the ground with a thud. I had to pause, bracing myself against the wall of the building. That spell had taken a ridiculous amount of effort. What was wrong with the magic in this place? It had never worked like this before. I had to struggle to drag the wizard into the alley before anyone came along. Levitation was out of the question.

I did not bother to revive him. He would come round soon enough, I was sure of that, and it would give me time to recover enough energy to encourage his conversation. I did, however, take the precaution of tearing his clothes for makeshift rope. Quite apart from keeping him where he was, the activity revealed a far more significant treasure: a wand.

When he awoke, nearly an hour later, it was to the sight of his own wand being twirled casually between my fingers, and a smile on my lips.

"Good evening, sir. I have a few questions for you, but for now, I would like to begin with a few…experiments. Do you mind?"

The wizard stared at me wild eyed, and I chuckled.

"I'm delighted. Now, for a start, I am most curious as to whether you are familiar with this spell. _Crucio!_"

As it turned out, he wasn't familiar with it at all.

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I left the alley as the sun was coming up, taking with me some sparse knowledge of my new environment and a pounding headache, and leaving behind me a battered corpse. I had been careful not to use magic. The old man's talk of Wardens had not scared me, precisely, but I was feeling cautious. Before, in my own body, I would have cheerfully disregarded the Aurors, confident in my ability to leave the vast majority of them as little more than ash, but now, unfamiliar with both the magic and my opponent's capabilities, I would take the better part of valour. For now.

Another body. And, I was beginning to suspect, an entirely new world.

The notion was not entirely unfamiliar. Some of the older, deeper magic I had studied in my long life had suggested such things were possible, although they had given no hints as to how one could travel between them. And I knew from Rookwood that some of the Unspeakables believed dimensional travel was achievable, although as far as I knew no-one had dared to try it.

It could not be my first assumption; there were other explanations, after all. The trouble was, travelling to another world actually seemed to be the most sensible possibility. One theory was that this was all an elaborate fabrication by one or some of my enemies, designed to confuse and maybe humiliate me. The flaw in that plan was that I had died. I knew better than most that no magic could recall the dead to life, and I knew that no-one would have been foolish enough to revive me. In addition, even if this was all a charade, magic would not have changed so much. That would have required a fundamental change in reality, which was significantly less achievable than dimensional travel.

Another possibility; memory alteration by…someone. That would potentially explain the man's ignorance of my history. I flattered myself that even outside Britain, I was not entirely unheard of. And even if he had not heard of me, I refused to believe that he had not heard of Harry Potter, the nearest thing to a magical miracle in existence. And of course, this did not explain the magic either.

When you have ruled out the impossible, all that remains is the highly, highly improbable.

Where though did I go from here? Operating on the assumption that I was in a different world, the obvious conclusion was to try and make my way back to my own world…but that was perhaps not as good an idea as it sounded. I had, after all, just been killed. Furthermore, many of my loyal followers had been killed. I was hardly in a good position to take up my crusade again. Besides, there were…possibilities, in a world where no-one knew who I was.

There were many things to be done, but my first priority was a proper wand. The stick I had taken from the old man had sufficed for the interrogation, but it was a poor instrument. I rather suspected that it was simply a drumstick with a few runes carved into it, and I refused to use such a tool for a moment longer than I had to. Unfortunately, the wizard had clearly not been a theoretical thinker. He had filled me in on some essentials, but nowhere near enough for me to make my own wand. The runes had never been taught in a Hogwarts classroom, and if I was right in my other world theory, then even the most obsessed Unspeakable would be unfamiliar with them.

I needed an expert, but I had no idea where to find one.

So I returned to the pub.

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This time, I positioned myself in one of the booths; a dark corner with an acceptable view of the door. It was the habit of a lifetime, and I saw no reason to abandon it now.

However, it would not be true to say that my attention was fixed solely on the doorway. I was confident that nobody would be pursuing me just yet, and the 'wand' in my hand was of far more interest. It looked nothing like any of the instruments I had used over the years, and Ollivander would have been ashamed to have it in his shop. The body was fairly standard, a length of wood about twelve inches long, but the grip was more curious. Specifically, it was carved in the shape of a duck's head.

I had seen such things before, but only in the Muggle world. It looked distinctly like an example of the tackier variety of walking stick. Now that I was examining it carefully, and not just channelling power through it, there was a definite sense – although I could not say how I knew it – that the stick had been loved. I assumed that it had been a family heirloom of sorts.

Slightly less distinctive – to a wizard's eyes, at least – were the runes etched into the wood. As I had suspected, even upon closer examination none of them were familiar to me. A few might conceivably have been related to obscure dialects of the runes I had studied all those years ago, but even those were not really decipherable. However, when I loosed some of the power within me, they emitted a very, very faint glow. It was possible that they were merely decorative, rather than some integral in some practical way to the wand's workings. Certainly, it had worked well enough for me in my interrogation of its former owner. Still, I was curious about them, and reluctant to engage in too much experimentation with forging my own wand before I understood it properly. There was no question of keeping it for too long though.

Next to my glass was a piece of card with an address on it. I had made enquiries with the barkeeper, presenting myself as someone new to magic,and he had scribbled it down for me. He hadn't spoken; this seemed to be his usual state. He hadn't given me a name though. I twirled the stick between my fingers as I studied the card, an action I apparently hadn't forgotten, despite my changed body. I was nervous.

It was not a sensation I was used to, and I did not like it. That, more than anything, spurred me into action. I drained the glass, and made my way out of the pub, taking the card with me. I had no idea how to get there, but I had taken some money from the old wizard's body. Taxis were in ready supply, and I stopped one.

Twenty minutes or so later, I was standing outside an office block. It did not look like a promising location for a magical practitioner to be using, but I made my way inside nonetheless. I have never been accused of being an idiot though; the stolen wand was in my hand all the way up the stairs.

The office was not hard to find – the doorway proudly declared that a wizard worked there. A wizard by the name of Dresden. Somewhat hesitantly, I knocked on the door, heard someone call me in. I opened the door to see a young man with dark hair, grinning at me from behind a desk.

"Hi there! Come on in, my name's Harry."

I nearly bit through my tongue.


End file.
